Finally it appears as if winter has been sent packing. It was fairly cold up until the end of the week, but did manage to get above freezing a few days. Now it’s downright balmy compared to what we had been dealing with for so long. In fact, most of the snow has melted at last and the forecast for the coming week looks warm and sunny. About damned time!

Chris Van Deelen is the author of the Skirmisher Publishing LLC sourcebook Creatures of the Tropical Wastes sourcebook, co-author of its Wisdom from the Wastelands game supplement and contributor to the 'Sword of Kos: Hekaton' Anthology.

Finally it appears as if winter has been sent packing. It was fairly cold up until the end of the week, but did manage to get above freezing a few days. Now it’s downright balmy compared to what we had been dealing with for so long. In fact, most of the snow has melted at last and the forecast for the coming week looks warm and sunny.

About damned time!

Last week I mentioned that I was going to work on my third short story to tie in with my ‘Sword of Kos: Dark Inheritance’ novel. I started ‘Cost of Freedom’ on Monday and I’m almost finished writing it. I’ll complete this story after I’m done with this blog. Turns out that it’s a little longer than I had anticipated it to be, but I am using the limit of 10,000 words more as a guideline rather than a set in stone limitation. It’ll be around 12,000 words once finished, probably a little more.

Yesterday I had planned that on Monday I would start on the fourth story, called ‘Hunt’ but remembered a few months back I was thinking of writing another zombie short story entitled 100. I have decided that instead of working on the ‘Hunt’ I’ll write that one instead.

Well the downside is that this is taking a toll on my RPG design. Which is fine, since until the Kos campaign setting is first and foremost on the priority list for Skirmisher, any of the my other works will have to take a back-seat. So I don’t really mind all that much taking my time in getting back to that work.

Although I will have to write up a few new Wisdom from the Wasteland issues. Speaking of I’m a little unsure which issue is coming out next. I thought that issue 39 would be my Alternate Radiation issue but it appears that the next one will be from my co-author Derek Holland. So right now I’m totally in the dark about it and I’ll just have to wait and see what the next week brings.

I’m not the kind of guy who watches the news, read a paper, or even listen to the news on the radio. To be honest I’m the kind of guy who just doesn’t want to know. It helps me maintain my sunny disposition and keeps me happy.

Yes, there are plenty of people who would scoff at me for this attitude, who would say that I’m essentially living under a rock.

Go ahead, this is my life and the way I like things to be done.

Still I get plenty of headlines when I start up my browser each day and lots of news makes it on my Facebook feed. Sometimes it’s interesting, other times, especially when it involves politics and the various views, I don’t give a flying you know what.

But one bit of information that did catch my interest was the fact that it appears that animals are trying to get out of Yellowstone. This has led to speculation that a volcano may be on the verge of erupting down there. And all things considered, down there is not really all that far from home. A 12 hour trip by car if I’m not mistaken.

To top it off, there are stories of earthquakes taking place along the ‘Ring of Fire’. Which is leading to speculation that we’re in for a major volcanic event in the near future.

Kind of scary when you think of it, and this may not bode well for people down around the park and those who live in the and near the Ring of Fire.

Maybe it’s nothing, maybe its mis-interpretation, who knows. I have even seen stories that said animals were not in fact leaving the park but going into it.

Bottom line is that this is nothing more than a wait and see situation.

The past week has seen me finish several novels. One was great, the other two… not so great. First I will talk about Monster Hunter: Alpha. This is the third in a series of (at this time) four novels written by Larry Correia. If you are not familiar with the novels, they are essentially about a company called Monster Hunter International. It’s made up of survivors of monster attacks who go and hunt down monsters to collect a ‘Puff’ or bounty. It has a lot to do with the whole Cthulhu mythology and are very entertaining to read.

Monster Hunter Alpha is all about Ray Harbinger, one of the founders of the company dealing with a Werewolf outbreak, which has a very real chance of going global if not contained. I won’t go into more but it was a great look into the character and a lot of fun to read. I just hope that Mr. Correia will continue with this series in the very near future.

The other two books are not as good in my opinion. First was Ghost: Paladin of Shadows by a favorite author of mine, John Ringo. I was very eager to get into this novel as I have always really enjoyed his work.  The novel started out great in my opinion, but after it hit the second half, I was not impressed.

Maybe it’s because I’m getting a little older and reading about sex does not interest me anymore, but this novel had a great deal to do with the main character battling his darker impulses and being into the whole dominant / submissive sub-culture. I learned far more about this – how to say it politically correctly?  To hell with it, this is my blog and I’ll state what I feel, even if people will disagree. This subculture is quite deviant in my view. For right or wrong it is my view and others will find nothing wrong with it, which is fine.

Simply put, I have absolutely no interest in that sort of thing and I do not wish to know anything about it.

Will I read the second novel in the series? Yes. I typically give a series at least two books before giving up on it. If Mr. Ringo’s second novel continues in the same vein, I’m done. Hey, he has plenty of other novels out that I can read instead and I will do so.

The last novel I finished is called ‘The First Casualty’ by Mike Moscoe, also known as Michael Shepherd, the author of the Kris Longknife series. I have enjoyed that particular series, although some books were not as good as others. This is sort of a prequel to the Longknife series and deals with her Grandparents and the events that took place well before she was a twinkle in her father’s eye.

I found that my mind was really wandering while I was listening to this book and that I didn’t really care all that much for the book. As with the all series I will continue with it and I’ll give the second novel a shot. I just hope that it piques my interest or I’ll probably drop this series as well.

If you want an actual rating, I’d give it a 2.5 out of 5. Just average.

Not really sure which novel I’ll get into next week, but I’m really leaning towards the first of the Shadow of Saganami novels or maybe book 4 of the Destroyermen series.

Today I had the first of several blockbuster movies that I wanted to see. Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I loved it! Great action, more than a few good laughs, and overall a good storyline. As I have come to expect I did enjoy the effects and sometimes a movie can be far more enjoyable than the media it started life as.

Don’t fret, I won’t give away any spoilers when it comes to the movie. Although I will say one thing… back in the 80’s, a lot of movies were super-patriotic, had ‘Ra Ra America’ written all over them. One that really sticks out in my mind is ‘Death Before Dishonor’ which had a scene near the end that was so Pro-American I can still clearly remember the groans and laughs it got from a purely Canadian crowd.

Even though the character is named ‘Captain America’ it is by no means a propaganda movie. He was more concerned by far with saving lives than pushing any sort of agenda or Pro-American message.

And as a Canadian I certainly appreciated that little fact.

It should come to no surprise to anyone to learn that I read comics. Nowhere near the way some people do (or as many for that matter), and I don’t ‘collect’ them the way people do, such as keeping them in acid-free bags with backs and stored away. I read them and then I store them, for sure, but not like that.

I typically buy a couple a week and this week I happened to come across a little gem from DC comics called Harley Quinn. I read the 4^th issue (well skimmed would be a better word) out of curiosity

It made me laugh and laugh hard! The character has evolved from what I recall when she first burst onto the scene back in the 90’s. She’s adorable! Crazy but absolutely adorable. I had to pick up the first four issues and I have had it added to my file. I’m officially hooked. I just hope that the writers can continue to come up with such wonderfully chaotic stories and keep things going. I want to be buying this comic for years to come.

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Anyhow, that’s it for this week’s blog. I hope that everyone is enjoying life in general and having a nice spring, no matter what part of the world you call home.

Until next week, peace!